Be the Quiet
by Nyhratak
Summary: On Stranger Tides - alternate ending. With the two chalices lost, Jack faces the painful truth, and is forced to watch both Blackbeard and Angelica die before his very eyes. Character death. Oneshot R&R if you will :3


**A/N: I just saw OST, and found myself, once again, formulating an alternate ending. Tragic though it may have been, I would have been really drawn in if Angelica had perished along with Blackbeard, so this is my opinion brought into being. Syrena, in this, is null and void although I liked her, thus never bringing the climactic objects to Jack, from which we get this little endeavor. Reviews are most welcome!**

Two chalices. One to take life and the other to give it. Two chalices that would never again be sought after or be within the hands of mortal men. That which had been wanted so very badly now ceased to exist, confined within a watery grave in the dark, damp cavelike structure, now empty of life but for three beings and filled with rubble.

Jack observed these things in a kind of tense silence, standing above the two dying bodies with naught but remorse upon his customarily humor-twisted continence. The souls below, lying on a deathbed of wet rock, gasped and shuddered in agony, one victim to multiple stabbings, as it were, and the other the effects of the same poison that also effected the first. They struggled ceaselessly to catch a breath, fingers scraping along the cave floor in feeble attempts to bring about some sort of relief. Still Jack surveyed this, eyes drawn once more to the women on the left.

What could he do? He had looked for the chalices, he truly had, but his search proved futile, and he returned despondently to them empty-handed. His feet had felt as if they were dragging the world, a dying world full of chaos and utter confusion, and when he brought himself to a slow, deliberate stop, he had gazed down and seen all of what that world had suffered through in the torment of the father and daughter. He barely could breathe himself, kneeling at last to bring himself closer to the fading ones.

It was when he had barely supported himself on the ground that the one called Blackbeard spasmed once, twice, and a third time, before his pain and anguish were spirited away with his essence, leaving behind the dead, bleeding body of a demon of the seas. Jack spared a moment, having so little, but offering a wisp of a thought for the man. He had rightly been valiant, until death's cruel hands had caught him by the throat and choked the life out of him. His time had been up.

The strains of the living came to Jack's ears like a voice that he never wanted hear. She cried out in agony for her father's passing, words scattered and poignant through the tears that trailed down her face.

His eyes were drawn to her, affecting as it was, and the pirate's insensitive heart experienced the piercing sensation of empathy, and even, perhaps, grief.

"Angelica..." He said, the name falling from his lips like an ill omen.

Her head turned up towards him only just, dirt-streaked features scarcely visible through her hair, in deplorable disarray. "Jack." The reply was hardly discernable, grating and full of woe. "_Why_?"

He did not understand, shaking his head in confusion. "Why what?"

"Why - why does it end - like this?"

Jack's brow creased. His hand moved the hair from her eyes. He found the answer in the most dismal of facts, but could not bring himself to dwell upon them. He was not that kind of man. "It has to, love. It has to." That was all he said.

He could have said more. He should have. The three words that he would not have said to anyone else were begging him to release them from their bondage, but his undying emotions remained unsaid.

Jack held her then, battle worn arms around her as her last trembling breaths resounded around the deserted cave. All through that time he reflected upon things, many things, and when she would say something to him, he would answer simply, a hard deed to accomplish for one of his mental frivolities.

She left the world of the mortals with a tearful sigh, never claiming a last kiss, never saying to him what he wished to hear. He stared at her, unblinking and immobile, before laying her corpse down beside her father, standing subsequently. Alone with himself, Jack regretted not doing more. He cursed himself for not saying even an adequate goodbye. He wasn't stable enough to let himself express his feelings, and so his very self.

"I'm...sorry." He murmured, talking to both himself and Angelica. What he thought would help made him feel worse.

It was then that Captain Jack Sparrow felt a tear slip from his eye.

It was the only time then and forever after, unseen by anyone.

He made his way gradually to the rocky incline that lead out of the cave, wanting nothing more than to drink away everything and go back to the sea. Jack paused at the top of the egress, but decided it best not to look back, and walked into the jungle around, out of sight.

He left the two bodies there, for he wanted nothing more than to forget.

There they stayed, immersed in the shadows of a ruined legend.


End file.
